My Blog Has Moved!

To all seven of my loyal readers: My blog will now be accessible here:

http://www.saintstephenlutheran.net/our-pastor/blog/

I graduated from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago 30 years ago yesterday. Am I old yet?

Lilies!

Weeks of being overwhelmed with too much to do, losing the Benedictine rhythm of prayer and play mixed in with work, the rhythm that makes for spiritual and emotional and physical health ...

Meanwhile, in the garden: Yesterday the first daylily bloomed!!

And, this morning, the first Easter lily is beginning to open!!

The deer haven't eaten the daylilies. (I've been spraying Liquid Fence with regularity.) More of a miracle, the voles haven't gotten the Easter lilies.

Blooms in the garden. Gifts from God -- to encourage a moment's pause, to remember that work is not all that there is.

It was a great day for bicycling today. Early this morning I got out for about 18 miles on the road bike, and I'm up over 1,000 miles for the year. I'm right where I want to be. I like to average 200 miles a month on the road bike. Then, with the miles on the commuter bike, I get close to 3,000 for the year.

Then, commuting today, the breeze was behind me on the way home! Perfect!

I also was very pleased with my new Specialized messenger bag for the commute. It's the same size and quality as the medium bag made by Timbuk2, but much cheaper. I've been making do with various kinds of bags -- but the right equipment makes such a difference! The only problem is that the only shop that sells Specialized equipment is Conte's, which I've always thought of as the evil empire. (We had enough shops in town before Conte's opened, and we like the owners of the other shops, and we don't want the market to be so dilluted that our friends go out of business.) To Barry at Bikes Unlimited: I promise, I won't buy anything else at Conte's.

Here's Barry's eclectic shop
http://www.bikewilliamsburg.com/home

This Memorial Day

From this morning's New York Times, a beautifully-written editorial about Memorial Day.

Memorial Day often seems like a holiday that anticipates summer. But this year in the Northeast at least, it feels like exactly what it is — a spring holiday. If this had been a scorcher of a spring, rather than unseasonably rainy and cool, perhaps this Memorial Day wouldn’t feel quite so premature. As it is, the lilacs upriver from New York are just beginning to fade — after a tumultuous lilac year, blossoms dense as thunderheads — and the poppies are just threatening to open.

There is also a springlike, life-affirming mood to this day. There are grand, public memorials — as there should be. But in some ways the most meaningful are the intimate ones, the private ones, where we both mourn and celebrate the men and women who have died in this country’s service.

What transforms this nation’s cemeteries today isn’t merely fresh flowers or small American flags or carefully tended gravestones. It’s the presence of quiet people — gathered in small groups or standing alone — paying homage to a grave that marks a life that was sacrificed. Some of these people are still racked by their loss, which is as recent as yesterday. In others the loss has become a very old wound, the pain still lingering in memory even though the scar has faded.

We drive or walk past the cemetery and its poplars, feeling the tug of the season ahead, the resistance of the season behind. At first we may not feel a visceral connection to those somber gravesides or the people standing there. But their loss is ours, and always will be. That is the meaning of Memorial Day.

My most-recent favorite bumper sticker is this:

"Subvert the Dominant Paradigm"

Actually, I'm not sure we need to expend any energy to do that. It's been happening, and is continuing to happen, in just about every arena you can think of.

For instance --

The dominant paradigm used to be: We are safe from foreign attack on our soil.

The dominant paradigm used to be: If you go to college, you'll get a good job.

The dominant paradigm used to be: If you get a good job with a good company, and do a good job, you have a job for life and a pension for your retirement.

The dominant paradigm used to be: The "Big Three" (GM, Chrysler and Ford) are the world leaders in automobile production.

The dominant paradigm used to be: People go to church on Sunday mornings.

The list could go on and on, right?

Here are a couple of faith questions. In all of this, what is the Spirit up to? What is the future God is leading us into?

The big news today is that William and Mary students broke the all-time record of the greatest number of people simultaneously doing the dance to Michael Jackson's song, "Thriller."

To see this momentous event, go to www.youtube.com and type into the search box: William and Mary Thriller.

It's great!

I didn't even know William and Mary students could dance!

A death, and all the emotions that make up grief. People gather for a memorial service. A reception afterwards: time for conversation, a hug.

What does the grieving person hear, over and over? "If you need anything, call me."

Does that ever happen? Does the grieving person ever call? Rarely.

Why is that?

I've said for years that it's because we've been formed by our culture that so much values self-sufficiency and privacy.

As for self-sufficiency: We are formed to think it is a weakness to reach out for help. (One purpose of Christian community is to form us in a value counter to the culture: that we are interdependent; that we need to let others carry us when we are weak, in the same way that we carry others when they are weak.)

As for privacy: Susanna Owens, a member of our congregation and a therapist at the Counseling Center at the College of William and Mary recently told me that she's not sure that is the problem. She thinks it's more a matter of trust. I think she's on to something important. Since we are formed in a culture of competition, we are formed to distrust others. (Another purpose of Christian community is to create a safe place to be vulnerable.)

In any event, it is not enough to say to a grieving person, "If you need anything, call me."

Instead, make the call yourself. There are no magic words to say. A good starter question is, "How are you doing?" And then listen. When a grieving person knows you are a good listener, s/he is encouraged to trust you. If that trust builds, and when you have called every week or so for a lot of weeks, and have then checked in for a lot of months after that, you might find that you've been a part of the grieving person's healing.

(You know all of this, don't you, from your own journeys through grief?)